We had game night at my house this past Friday night. Beau, Matt and Nate and I played a 100 point “Henchmen Only” game which turned out to be a nice change of pace. No 200+ heavy hitter figs running around the map this time.

We used the new map that came with the Hellboy Collector’s set that Beau picked up recently and that was fun. There’s a lot of water on that one, so it pays to have figures with the wing and/or dolphin symbol (and there are only like what, eight of those?)

Beau’s forces consisted of some Kobra Fanatics and some HIVE Troopers which clashed against Matt’s forces…Matt had a couple of Sentinel Troopers and I can’t remember who else. Nate utilized the outwit that comes with the Superman TA since he had a couple of LexCorp Battlesuits floating all over the place and I took potshots at him with my two Dreadnaughts. I threw in a Hydra Medic to keep the ‘droids lubed up and in working order. That seemed to work out well. Plus, I was able to take advantage of the Hydra TA and increase my attack value on almost every turn.

I need all the help I can get since I tend to roll low.

Consistently.

So, during the battle, one of Matt’s Sentinel Troopers made a successful attack on one of Beau’s figs and since he rolled doubles, it was an attack with knockback.

Except one of Beau’s other figures was directly behind the targeted figure, thus rendering the knockback result ineffective.

I thought about that for a second and came up with the following solution to this problem…possibly something to be considered for a house rule.

In a situation such as this, the figure BEHIND the successfully hit figure is assigned an action token. If the figure already has an action token, he is then assigned a second token and is given pushing damage (unless he/she possesses a power or TA to nullify said pushing damage.) What this does is reflect the targeted character being pushed into an adjacent friendly figure and throwing that figure off balance or otherwise interfering with his/her person during the heat of battle.

This way, the effects of the knockback aren’t nullifed, but rather re-directed onto another opposing figure.

In the way of clarification:
The figure who is struck by the knocked back figure and receives the action token, I assume that it does not matter if this figure is friendly or opposing, is that correct?

If an attack roll comes up doubles (2 3s, 2 4s, 2 5s, etc) and it strikes the target opponent successfully and does damage, the opponent character will be knocked back a total number of squares equal to the number of clicks they actually take, on a straight vector from the successfully attacking character. If this causes the knocked back character to strike another character, both characters take one click of damage from the impact, and the knocked back character comes to rest in the square formerly occupied by the character they have struck, while that character is moved one square over on the same vector. If this causes more characters to be struck and displaced, each additional impact causes an additional click of damage to each participant.

If a knocked back figure encounters either Blocking or Hindering Terrain with 3 or more spaces of movement left on its knockback, it destroys the terrain feature and goes through. The remaining knockback movement is reduced by 1 space, and the figure takes 2 points of knockback damage if it was knocked through Blocking Terrain, or 1 point of damage if it was knocked through Hindering Terrain.

All close combat attacks using Super Strength that actually result in damage being done to the target character automatically result in Knockback. **

Knockback is such a huge part of comic book combat that there was no way I could accept the weird ‘force field’ effect that WK puts around all its characters, apparently to keep you from ever accidentally KOing one of your own figures. Ever since Jack Kirby, superhumans get hit hard and they fly through the air, smashing through walls and buildings and statues and, often, other superhumans, including their own teammates. So under my House Rules, if you hammer someone and get knockback, and there is someone else right behind them, they’re going to knock that figure back and do some impact damage to them, as well. That’s just how it should work in any self respecting superhero fight.

I also figured that any time someone with Super Strength lands a punch on anyone else who is not, for some reason, immune to Knockback, that person is going to go flying, whether doubles are rolled or not.